About

On Being Invisible

I change my blog name every few years to reflect my blogging interests!

November 2009: On Being Invisible and Red House Diaries
This blog started in a country called Canada. I was investigating the Island of Invisible Women. I had discovered I was one of the occupants. I was at that awkward age – that one between 55 and 65. It is when a woman is older than all of her kitchen appliances, older than the house she lives in, but not as old as the dirt in the yard. It is an age when women are deemed to be too old to be beautiful and energetic, and too young to be wise and full of character. It is called the “Invisible Age.”

March 2011: A Lighter Shade of Grey
While crusading in my Coat of Invisibility, I discovered a powerful band of thieves were at work in the Wasteland of Superficiality. They had created an empire whose sole source of income depended on making women think they are not beautiful. Older women were offered dangerous potions to banish grey hair and wrinkles. Younger women were enticed into halls of cosmetics and lairs of surgeons who promised to make all their dreams come true – for a price. Even young girls were made to believe they were not pretty enough or thin enough.

June 2012: As I Age
I was contently following my cosmetic-less Map of my Aging, when suddenly I stumbled into the Swamp of Shattered Dreams. My husband was in a motorcycle accident, several family members became ill, and my beloved Happy Place – the cabin – was destroyed in the ‘One in a Thousand Year Flood’. Stuck in the Mud Flats of Disillusionment, I shut the blog down for 4 months.

March 2014: Serendipitous and Curating Serendipity
For several years my tagline was “What I see when I’m looking for something else”. That suggested blog names like Serendipitous, then Curating Serendipity.

October 2015: Fueled by Chocolate
Dark Chocolate is my ‘go to’ treat. When I’m on my deathbed, I will eat nothing but chocolate. I renamed my blog Fueled by Chocolate…

August 2019: New Blog – Amusives
It was a summer of change. With my tenth anniversary of blogging in sight, I accepted I wasn’t going to reach my goal of 1000 posts. Time to move on to the next decade. So I started a new blog and called it Amusives, and I hope you will find it entertaining, engaging and interesting!

May 2020: Old Blog, New Name – The Truth Fairy
Though much material moved to the New Blog (Amusives), the Old Blog got a facelift and will remain the home for thoughts on current events.

So, Who Am I?
I am a Canadian blogger who has chosen to write under a variation of my childhood name – Margy. I have many other names – dearest, mother, grandma, aunt and probably the name my son-in-laws call me when I am out of hearing range…

The Red House – we share the land with white tail deer, coyotes, skunks, weasels, owls, hawks… and mosquitoes.

About Home
I have moved from house to house and country to country, but now I am home again. Home is a Red painted House in Canada. I am “Grandma in the Red House”, which makes it very difficult to contemplate painting it some other colour. I am also a Canadian Snowbird – my winter home is a ‘Bland Beige’ bungalow in Arizona.

Hi Huffygirl – you are right, I have unsubscribed and then resubscribed several times. I move back and forth between using the WordPress Reader and the Google Reader, but I think I’ve got it all sorted out once and for all!

Nice to meet you, Margie. When I was 40 I stopped coloring my hair (I had been for 15 years at that time). 5 years later I needed a job outside the home and discovered the dreaded AGE DISCRIMINATION! So Miss Clairol and I reestablished our relationship. Now I’m not sure I want to go back … although it’s a real pain in the ass every 6 weeks. BTW, I’m 49 now and considering ‘letting the hair go’ when I turn 50. As a special 1/2 century Birthday present to myself. But I’m scared my husband will finally give up and leave me – he didn’t want me to cut my hair short again 6 months ago either. Talk about superficial! 😉

I’m kidding about my husband. He can’t leave me. I’ve been following him around for 26 years – literally. We have moved 25 times. He’s going to have to kill me … as I daily remind him.

Welcome to my place – on the internet. We moved around a lot too, but not quite that many times!
It is unfortunate that women have to resort to colouring their hair in order to achieve certain things. Of course, if we all just ignored the beauty industry completely, this just wouldn’t be an issue!

At the bottom of the smashwords page you’ll see a link labeled “View” and other download options for mobile readers under reading formats. Take a look at the story; see if you get hooked. If you like the story, please share with others. This is the only way good things happen today–agents and publishers are of the dinosaur era. They’re slow; they’re frightened; and they’ll eat you if you’re not careful. We’re on our own. I truly believe in this book. If you do, too, share it with someone. Thank you!

Hello, I wanted to come back here and thank you for the follow, but again I got sidetracked by the richness of your blog! I love Canada and I love your perspective on life, yourself, your country, and blogging! I feel I could just shuffle around “in” your blog for weeks and find many treasures! Will be a frequent visitor just to explore the riches you’ve compiled here and can’t wait for more posts!

Oh, they are most interesting to me as well, but I don’t have the wealth of living the history of most of the people in my club yet! But it’s an enjoyable endeavor anyway! Looking forward to hearing what you think of some of the replies!

Hi Margie, thank you for following my blog, I don’t know how you found me but I am glad you did. I to am in that invisible phase of life, and actually really enjoying it, it gives me freedom. I look forward to reading about you as I follow your blog. Best wishes – Sue (in Suffolk, UK – I can see you are far away in Canada)

You must have left a trail of bread crumbs somewhere and I just followed it!
I understand what you mean by the freedom of being invisible.
I look forward to reading your blog too, especially since I am so fond of the UK, having lived there for a few years.

Delighted to have discovered your blog this morning. I am at that invisible age too but NOT older than my house – thank goodness. I can tell I am going to thoroughly enjoy your blog. I am relatively new to blogging and struggling a bit to find my “voice.” Reading great posts like yours encourages me to be a bit more authentic. Your “About” section is a marvel.

Thank you for your kind remarks. I’ve rewritten the ‘About’ section a number of times over the years – the struggle paid off I guess!
I really understand your search for a ‘voice’. I discovered that just the act of blogging itself lead me to the place I am now. When I started, I wasn’t taking photographs, I wasn’t drawing stickmen, and I wasn’t very sure what (or if) my blog had a purpose or a direction. I eventually decided it is simply a journal of what I see as I age, and that is purpose enough!
All the best in your blogging journey!

Thank you, Margie. I think you’re right that the “act” of blogging will lead me somewhere. Right now I use it as an escape from life’s troubles – a form of therapy, I guess. And yet there are times I feel a strong urge to write about those things – my daughter’s brain injury, for example – so I am a bit betwixt and between. I’m sure, as you say, things will evolve to where they should be. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy perusing your blog. And I adore PUNS. Shamelessly.

I find there is a fine line between what I want to write about and what I should say about people! My husband has a brain injury too, but I haven’t been able to find a way to write about that much without compromising his privacy. So, mostly I blog about non people things – like puns!

Margie…thanks for stopping by my blog and following! I so totally agree about being part of “the invisible age!” I was just having a discussion about that tonight with a friend….about how middle-aged women become invisible. I’m not sure I’ve ever had anyone else put it into words before!

I believe the invisible age, and ageism in general, is relatively new. It seems to be more prevalent in North America, where the senior population is not viewed as having much value! Google ‘ageism’ – there are quite a few good articles that discuss this trend.

Gosh, you’ve already done it all. And I love all the bits and all the you’s and all the titles. And you’re Canadian. Some of my favourite people are Canadian.
But then I got to the end and your blogging accomplishments and realised, gosh, you’re that Margie. I only lasted two months in the NBFP Club but they were some of the happiest days of my life. I still miss it. Well, maybe not the coffee…..

I see you joined NBFP after I had passed my Presidency on to Al. He never has given me my share of the ‘Chocolate Dues’ to honour the fact that I founded the Club…
Sorry I missed your ‘Freshly Pressed’ event. To be honest, I don’t follow the FP listings. My FP event was poorly attended, and if I had been consulted in advance, I would have declined. It was in the middle of dealing with the flood that wiped out our summer community. I had just lost an important part of my life – I didn’t ask for, or want, to lose my NBFP community too!
But that’s water under the bridge, as they say…

Thanks for visiting. I’m using Apostrophe 2, which is the updated version of the theme. (I have modified the CSS a bit.)
If you decide to try it, be sure to go to your Dashboard and enable the mobile aspect of the theme. Apparently an increasing number of people read stuff on their phones.

Margy…thanks. I recently noticed they had a second version (I’m using the first). Yours looked similar, only it had some nice separations, which I like. Do you know how to make one photo larger than the other, and take up the space of two like in the sample WP shows? I wonder if I have to turn on the mobile aspect for my version? I thought it just automatically worked on all devices??

Apostrophe2 apparently has more features and added flexibility, so I chose this ‘upgraded’ version…
– The two different sized photos in the sample appear when you choose ‘WP Admin – Appearance – Customize – Featured Content’ and then add a tag name. Then up to 6 posts will appear in the top section above the rest of your posts.
– The mobile version has to be turned on. Go to ‘WP Admin – Appearance – Mobile’ to turn it on.
– Choose ‘WP Admin – Appearance – Customize – Content Options – Post Details – Display Date’. Uncheck ‘display date’ if you don’t want to see the date on top of your photos on your home page.
– In ‘Content Options – Featured Images’, there are 4 options for how and where featured images are displayed.
– In ‘Appearance – Widgets’ there are 4 options of where to put the widgets. Each option displays a bit differently.
– In ‘Customize – Menus – Menu Locations’ – make sure the Header Menu option is pointing towards the Menu you want to use.

I wanted to be able to fiddle with the look by programming in CSS, so upgraded to the Premium Plan ($11C a month) to try that out for a year.

Margy…thanks sooo much for this. I’m so tied up right now, I don’t have time to fiddle with things. But I did like your site, so will check it out later. I’m on a “premium” plan, but I paid once for the year. Is there a new system, or a new kind of premium, or just a new payment plan? And how did you learn how to do all this stuff?

Premium is the middle of the 3 plans. If you don’t want to customize with CSS, then you could probably drop back to the Personal Plan at the end of your year for half the price – unless you need the storage space for your photos. (I resize my photos so they load fast, so storage space isn’t an issue.)
How did I learn this? I’m the ‘Master of Drop-down Menus’.

I stumbled on your blog because I was looking for something that mentioned last year’s Canada turning 150, like my little town is this year…just to get a feel for the difference in celebrations, but honestly, I can’t wait to get back to your blog later and explore it more deeply. You have a great one!

Made in Canada!

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Little Known Facts of Dubious Value

This Blog:
– lives in Alberta, Canada and Arizona, USA
– was started in November 2009
– has moved to https://amusives.wordpress.com/

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